Silly Media Coverage

The MissTravel mascot thinks it's all fun and games, but she's going to have to suck cock inside each and every one of those monuments.

A friend of mine has been telling me for a while how much she hates Jezebel, but I’ll admit I usually like them. I don’t read the site religiously, but when I do, it’s rare that I find something totally off-base or stupid. But it happened yesterday, when I came across this piece by Lindy West on the newest sugar daddy site.

“MissTravel.com is a travel dating website that matches generous travelers with attractive travel girls (or guys). If you are a frequent traveler you can easily search, find or meet a hot travel companion, sexy travel mate or beautiful travel buddy. And if you are an attractive travel lover who lacks the financial resources, we’ll match you with a traveling sponsor or help you earn frequent flyer miles you may redeem for free travel, free airline tickets and free hotel rooms. Best of all our website is 100% free for attractive men and women.”

Detroit’s entrepreneurial spirit was alive and well in the Booty Lounge, a mobile strip club. The Lounge, despite tailgating Lions games since 2005, recently became a target for the Motor City’s anti-stripper brigade when local news station WDIV sent its “Defenders” into the Booty Bus with hidden cameras (jerks!).
The bus was seized last Monday during the Lions game, apparently for being parked in a no parking zone. It remains to be seen if this will be the end of the Booty Lounge. Objections included the suggestion that it would attract the wrong element to Lions games, a laughable concept for anyone who’s ever been to an actual NFL game.

Today the Houston Presspublished a blog post by Richard Connelly about stripper blogger/tweeter @AngryStripper (Sarahtress), with what they seem to think is the bombshell revelation that a stripper is also a journalist working for the local daily. But really. How closeted is a stripper who posts face photos and whose Twitter profile lists something close to her real full name?

Sarah is kind of snobby in her stripper posts and tweets, but her bluntness is part of her charm (except for the occasional racism). Reading that she writes society coverage for the Houston Chronicle is unsurprising to readers familiar with her sweetly bitchy tone. Plus, what better background could there possibly be for covering Houston socialites? Anna Nicole Smith was far from the only woman to go from stripping at Rick’s to marrying a millionaire, y’all. There are undoubtedly a good number of former dancers and escorts among the women throwing charity balls and volunteering at (probably) MD Anderson.

7. How To Kiss A Stripper Without Getting Burned We haven’t had the energy to respond every time Complex used content about sex work to get traffic this year, although we did here and here. (Want to be more irritated? You’re welcome.) This was a bad one though. Yes, watch out for those complimentary French kisses that come with every lapdance. If you want to know how Herpes simplex originated, imagine a Contagion-style montage that leads back to a stripper locking lips with a monkey who then gestures that he left his wallet in his other vest and gets kicked out by the bouncers.

Yes, I saw the coverage earlier this month on pregnant Nevada brothel worker Summer Sebastian blogging about enjoying a few months at work at the Bunny Ranch while her (former) millionaire partner watches their beautiful twins at home.

No, I didn’t get the promised message of empowerment and normalization or a real heart-to-heart on what it’s like to be a mother and a sex worker.

This woman lives in a fantasy world where she’s the personal star of her own little reality show. She has safeguards, privileges, incentives, and motivations that even the most successful of us more marginalized sex workers lack.

I’m not going to applaud her for working full-service during her pregnancy and sharing it with the world, because she isn’t sharing it for me.

We don’t even need to talk about any risks posed to her baby because, let’s be real, she has the security of open access to medical care, stable housing and food, security personnel protecting her at her legal brothel, virtually no risk of being blackmailed or arrested, and—most invaluable to every pregnant person—she has a solid system of support in other workers. Sex work is lonely and isolating by nature and having a tribe physically present is a vital resource that we should all have access to.

This woman has access to literally anything in the world that a pregnant hooker could ever need.